‘What does?’

‘The other river, the black river. We always consider the silver river of life, rolling on and quickening all the world to a brightness, on and on to heaven, flowing into a bright eternal sea, a heaven of angels thronging. But the other is our real reality—’

‘But what other? I don’t see any other,’ said Ursula.

‘It is your reality, nevertheless,’ he said; ‘that dark river of dissolution. You see it rolls in us just as the other rolls—the black river of corruption. And our flowers are of this—our sea–born Aphrodite, all our white phosphorescent flowers of sensuous perfection, all our reality, nowadays.’

‘You mean that Aphrodite is really deathly?’ asked Ursula.

‘I mean she is the flowering mystery of the death–process, yes,’ he replied. ‘When the stream of synthetic creation lapses, we find ourselves part of the inverse process, the blood of destructive creation. Aphrodite is born in the first spasm of universal dissolution—then the snakes and swans and lotus—marsh–flowers—and Gudrun and Gerald—born in the process of destructive creation.’

‘And you and me—?’ she asked.

‘Probably,’ he replied. ‘In part, certainly. Whether we are that, in toto, I don’t yet know.’

‘You mean we are flowers of dissolution—fleurs du mal? I don’t feel feel as if I were,’ she protested.

He was silent for a time.

‘I don’t feel as if we were, ALTOGETHER,’ he replied. ‘Some people are pure flowers of dark corruption—lilies. But there ought to be some roses, warm and flamy. You know Herakleitos says “a dry soul is best.” I know so well what that means. Do you?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Ursula replied. ‘But what if people ARE all flowers of dissolution—when they’re flowers at all—what difference does it make?’

‘No difference—and all the difference. Dissolution rolls on, just as production does,’ he said. ‘It is a progressive process—and it ends in universal nothing—the end of the world, if you like. But why isn’t the end of the world as good as the beginning?’

‘I suppose it isn’t,’ said Ursula, rather angry.

‘Oh yes, ultimately,’ he said. ‘It means a new cycle of creation after—but not for us. If it is the end, then we are of the end—fleurs du mal if you like. If we are fleurs du mal, we are not roses of happiness, and there you are.’

‘But I think I am,’ said Ursula. ‘I think I am a rose of happiness.’

‘Ready–made?’ he asked ironically.

‘No—real,’ she said, hurt.

‘If we are the end, we are not the beginning,’ he said.

‘Yes we are,’ she said. ‘The beginning comes out of the end.’

“Don’t imagine that I intended to kill him in cold blood. It would only have been rigid justice if I had done so, but I could not bring myself to do it. I had long determined that he should have a show for his life if he chose to take advantage of it. Among the many billets which I have filled in America during my wandering life, I was once janitor and sweeper-out of the laboratory at York College. One day the professor was lecturing on poisons, and he showed his students some alkaloid, as he called it, which he had extracted from some South American arrow poison, and which was so powerful that the least grain meant instant death. I spotted the bottle in which this preparation was kept, and when they were all gone, I helped myself to a little of it. I was a fairly good dispenser, so I worked this alkaloid into small, soluble pills, and each pill I put in a box with a similar pill made without the poison. I determined at the time that when I had my chance my gentlemen should each have a draw out of one of these boxes, while I ate the pill that remained. It would be quite as deadly and a good deal less noisy than firing across a handkerchief. From that day I had always my pill boxes about with me. and the time had now come when I was to use them.

“It was nearer one than twelve, and a wild, bleak night, blowing hard and raining in torrents. Dismal as it was outside. I was glad within — so glad that I could have shouted out from pure exultation. If any of you gentlemen have ever pined for a thing, and longed for it during twenty long years, and then suddenly found it within your reach, you would understand my feelings. I lit a cigar, and puffed at it to steady my nerves, but my hands were trembling and my temples throbbing with excitement. As I drove, I could see old John Ferrier and sweet Lucy looking at me out of the darkness and smiling at me, just as plain as I see you all in this room. All the way they were ahead of me, one on each side of the horse until I pulled up at the house in the Brixton Road.

“There was not a soul to be seen, nor a sound to be heard, except the dripping of the rain. When I looked in at the window, I found Drebber all huddled together in a drunken sleep. I shook him by the arm, ‘It’s time to get out.’ I said.

“‘All right, cabby.’ said he.

“I suppose he thought we had come to the hotel that he had mentioned, for he got out without another word, and followed me down the garden. I had to walk beside him to keep him steady, for he was still a little top-heavy. When we came to the door, I opened it and led him into the front room. I give you my word that all the way, the father and the daughter were walking in front of us.

“‘It’s infernally dark,’ said he, stamping about.

“‘We’ll soon have a light,’ I said, striking a match and putting it to a wax candle which I had brought with me. ‘Now, Enoch Drebber,’ I continued, turning to him, and holding the light to my own face, ‘who am l?’